I'm Not Gonna Live For You Or Die For You
by lachambre11
Summary: "Stay," her mind quietly screams at him while he pads around her room barefoot, looking for his shoes. She takes a shower instead.


_**I'm **__**not gonna live for you **__**or die for you**_

"_You poured blood in my heart, I can't get enough__  
__I'm drowning and you can't decide__**"**_

Sunday Afternoon – Rachael Yamagata

**xXxX****xXxX**

Lily knows that they're not supposed to mean anything more than a mistake, an error of judgment, anything that means something ugly, and distasteful and plainly _wrong._

Anything but perfect or beautiful or _right._

But that is exactly how this feels, this _something_ between them, when he opens her eyes and looks at her, half-asleep and awe-struck, his head lolled a little bit to the right, his tongue sticking adorably.

His hands touching hers.

She wonders around her house stuck in this weird place between hilarity and tears, wonder and fear, repulsion and magnetism.

It's exhilarating.

It's also going to destroy her, she just knows it.

But she can't also bring herself to truly care, not when his breath tickles her cheek, then his lips ghosts over her collarbone, her belly-button, between her tights. Not when he whispers _more, _and _need _and _mine_ across her skin.

Not even when he leaves just as suddenly as he walks in, his warmth gone from her bed, his footsteps silently retreating from her house.

The only thing he leaves behind is his handprints on her hips and his scent on her pillow. They linger there for days, a gentle reminder that what happened was real and not imagined like she sometimes fears it was.

He doesn't leave her behind, though, not really, not when he always comes back for her.

Even if he still leaves again.

**xXxX****xXxX****xXxX**

When they meet on family gatherings, there's always this faint trace of smile on his lips whenever they eyes meet.

She tries her best not to smile back, but she finds herself unconsciously keeping tracks of his whereabouts (standing by the table talking with her Dad, eating his dessert while Victoire sits on his lap and talks about the new Kneazle they bought together) and making an effort to catch his eyes.

And every time she succeeds, there's always that familiar tickle of laughter bubbling on the back of her throat, the lingering urge to scream their truths to every breathing organism within shouting distance.

Of course she keeps it to herself, barely making the appropriate amount of polite conversation with anyone, just in case it slips out –

_I'm fucking Teddy._

When she tells him this – and of course she does, she tells him everything – he just chuckles and pull her lips to his, telling her that what they do it's called making love, that he must kiss her to bribe her way into silence.

Like it's all a big joke, when deep down they know what she's asking, practically begging him to do – and what they both know he's not going to do either.

**xXxX****xXxX****xXxX**

_Stay, _her mind quietly screams at him while he pads around her room barefoot, looking for his shoes.

She takes a shower instead.

**xXxX****xXxX****xXxX**

She tentatively sees other men. She goes out with them on Friday and Saturday nights and she does it because she feels like she needs to put some sort of effort into breaking the pattern she has fallen into.

_Work. _

_Eat. _

_Drink. _

_Sleep._

_Teddy._

She lets them hold her hand, she laughs at their jokes, and some of them are really funny, and sometimes it feels nice to be touched by someone else.

She never lets them kiss her, and never asks if they want to come inside.

The she realizes how silly it is to feel like her lips and her bed belong to Teddy when she's already sharing all these parts of him with Victoire.

Rationally, she knows they can lay no claim on each other, not when he was always meant for someone else, but that doesn't mean she never feels entitled to be the only one.

**xXxX****xXxX****xXxX**

She had expected to feel angry and sad when, once it all comes down to making a choice, he still ends up picking her cousin over her.

Yes, so maybe she had seen this coming, and maybe he hadn't promised her anything, but she'd still frantically hoped things would turn out differently.

What she hasn't really expected, though, was to feel as if her lungs had ceased to work the minute he told her that it was over, that he was getting married. As if she'd been sucker punched, skinned alive.

She hurt all over.

She felt _betrayed. _

And the worst part was that the irony of the whole thing would've amused her to no end, hadn't she been the one playing a part on this.

She had no right to felt cheated out of something when she was the one doing the cheating in the first place.

**xXxX****xXxX****xXxX**

She was right.

This had destroyed her.

**xXxX****xXxX****xXxX**

She still can't bring herself to care enough to regret doing it in the first place.

xXxXxXxXxXxX

**A.N: Review, please? **Just something to get me back into writing angst and to inspire me to finish my fic-a-fest story. Inspired by Rachael Yamagata's hauntingly beautiful "Sunday Afternoon", to whom I also own the title of this (unbeta-ed) story.


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